War is war

At the five-year anniversary of the outbreak of the Ukrainian civil war in mid-February, there is still an almost unknown side to this conflict that deserves more attention.

documentary Oleg's Choice, by directors Elena Volichine and James Keogh of 2016, is one of a few films that seek to understand the motivation of ordinary Russian men traveling to the outbreak republics of eastern Ukraine, a region and a war that has virtually disappeared from Western news media, but which is still ongoing and takes the lives of both soldiers and civilians.

Unlike Aliona Poluninas Their Own Republic, recently reviewed in New Time by Carmen Gray, Volochine and Keogh do not take sides with either side of the conflict. There is no hero worship or propaganda here for Russia and the Kremlin-backed rebels. Instead, we witness the emotional and psychological contradictions that drive the characters in the film.

A broken mother

The film revolves around the 32 year old Oleg Doubinine, who heads a unit of 60 Russian (and some Ukrainian) volunteers, and his younger comrade Max. Both have left family, friends and – in Max's case "a well-paid job" – and put their lives at risk by fighting them most Russians fail to distinguish themselves.

The irony of a war that has divided so many and so many comes to light when Oleg's group captures a Ukrainian scout. He is taken in for questioning by a brigade commander in a lavish headquarters in Donetsk – the capital of the self-established People's Republic of Donetsk (DNR) – and the obviously scared young man replies with a monotone word in unclear, lead-heavy voice. When asked if he knows what will happen to him, he shrugs. When pressed further, he suggests that he may be beaten, shot or "something else." "What else?" The commander asks with a complacent expression. "Exchanged with your boys?" Asks the young prisoner, who dares not put a hint of hope in his answer. After being told that he will actually be exchanged, he gets bread and soup. Sitting opposite the commander, the bewildered young man eats with nervous pleasure. In the background, we hear a mocking voice: "You're a real hamster, right?"

When Oleg is asked, "Who shot first?" He replies, "The Ukrainian Army."

Later, the prisoner is pushed into the back seat of a car and driven to a mortuary in the city. There he sees a grieving mother from Donetsk who is asked to identify the earthly remains of his son. He was killed in an ambush at the front about a week earlier – where Oleg's group also lost many men. Oleg and his comrades try to find a way their mother can see their son without actually seeing him – the body, which was left in no-man's land, was picked up after spending a week in the summer heat.

The mother, who was initially quite grasped, breaks down quickly, and her primal screams echo in the nearby concrete element houses as the truth goes up for her. The uproar does not help to alleviate the fear of the poor Ukrainian hostage that his own extradition has been arranged, and that he too may never see his mother again.

No romance

When Volochine and Keogh turn their cameras toward Oleg and his unit, the BARS battalion, it's been a year. At this time they are stationed in a collection of old Soviet garages. These battalions are closest to the front line, which is only a few hundred meters away.

Oleg – with the warrior name Doubina – is a slender, beautiful man from the Russian border town of Tyumen in western Siberia, a region bordering Kazakhstan. In 2014, after the protests at Maidan Square in Kiev forced Ukrainian-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych to flee, Oleg took a "two-week vacation in Donetsk" to fight for those he identified as victims and compatriots in need of protection.

Oleg is tired of the war and tired of being responsible for men, many of whom have lost their lives. This responsibility weighs on him when he acknowledges his deep disappointment over a war being fought in a "lawless zone." He adds: "I am not a fanatic who either loves or hates. I'm an officer. I treat my enemy as an enemy. War is war. But in a war you can either be a real sadist, or you can be a warrior, with principles and a sense of justice. "

For Max, who was about to die when a gang shot him in a street in Donetsk early in his DNR period, the fear and terror of the war is evident in a confidential interview with this soldier. Wearing only boxer shorts, the muscular and slender young man smiles repeatedly as he mentally tries to forget the trauma that it takes a lifetime to process. “After such sad and tough events, everything seems fun. We got away [alive from an ambush attack], but it's not fun at all. There is no romance in it. Everything is meat and guts. It gives a feeling, "he pauses with nervous laughter," that death with its scythe lurks behind our backs, but is afraid to come closer. "

Fools game

As Oleg's mother and stepfather come to see how things are going, after being told that he works as a volunteer non-combatant sanitation worker, it becomes clear that this lie has long been part of a scam. Oleg completed a first-aid course before leaving Donetsk, as a kind of shale hide. During his parents' visit, he maintains that he is not fighting.

As he himself says: "Here I can not be Oleg Doubinine, because he sees no torn bodies, does not shoot with Kalashnikovs, does not participate in the war." And he continues: "Oleg Doubinine is the one who gave birth to mom and dad, who has a sister, even two… That Oleg is not here, he is not allowed to be here: For one day I will return where I came from. My warrior name is Doubina. I'm in service. Oleg Doubinine belongs there, in a future with his wife and children. Oleg Doubinine does not want to preserve war memories. For him, war does not exist. "

The young Ukrainian prisoner returns in a nightly exchange with dead men from Oleg's group, delivered on a Red Cross truck marked "200" – Russian abbreviation for the weight of a corpse in a military sink coffin. Before he is handed over, he is forced into an interview with Russian state television. When asked: "Who shot first?" He replies, "The Ukrainian Army." When Oleg sees the broadcast, he giggles contemptuously: "Do you see how propaganda works?"